


Rendezvous

by porygonkin



Category: Earth-65 - Fandom, Marvel 616
Genre: F/M, Marvel Multiverse Crossover
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2016-07-24
Updated: 2016-07-24
Packaged: 2018-07-26 09:17:14
Rating: General Audiences
Warnings: Creator Chose Not To Use Archive Warnings
Chapters: 1
Words: 2,857
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/7568647
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/porygonkin/pseuds/porygonkin
Summary: <blockquote class="userstuff">
              <p>Miles had a life he'd like to forget about. Gwen wants to know more. Over a milkshake and cup of coffee, they disagree, and it takes one Lana Baumgartner, as usual, to knock some sense into Miles.</p>
            </blockquote>





	Rendezvous

“You have to be lying.”

“No, I swear, our Hawkeye really is a 13-year-old blind girl-“

“That’s ridiculous. How does she have perfect aim when she can’t even see?”

“Don’t be insensitive, Miles.”

 

Miles Morales picked up his milkshake and took another slurp, eyeing the girl across the table from him with immense skepticism. She fiddled with a strand of blonde hair as she met his gaze, a confident smirk on her face.

 

“You’re lying to me because everything in your world is wacky and doesn’t make any sense, so you think you can just convince me that anything you say about it is true.”

 

Gwen Stacy, the Spider-Woman of Earth-65, perched her chin on her hands, resting her elbows on the table, the smirk still firmly affixed to her face.

 

“That makes you sound very insecure.”

“Don’t pin your deception on me.”

 

The two of them were, as usual, meeting in the common ground of Earth-616, in a diner a few blocks away from Miles’s home. They’d been meeting in this manner once a week for three months now, the result of an altercation Miles had with Gwen, Jessica Drew, and Silk, who had been engaged in a meeting of their own when they were dragged into a conflict between Miles and the Rhino. The four of them teamed up to make quick work of the villain, and Miles found himself intrigued by the prospect of another Gwen Stacy running around in his turf, inviting her to a friendly lunch after the battle.

Miles was deeply enamored with Gwen. Now 17, he had long let go of Katie Bishop, his first and only previous relationship, that had gone up in a plume of thick, toxic smoke when she had been revealed to be a member of Hydra, as unwilling as she may have been in that regard. The end result of that hadn’t mattered anyway, as Miles’s world was destroyed in the Incursions that had wiped out the previous multiverse, something that Miles believed only he remembered. Now, it was as if his world never existed, as if he’d been on prime Earth his entire life. But he knew better.

The Gwen Stacy sitting across from him was, of course, still quintessentially Gwen Stacy, still a form of the girl he’d only briefly known in his own world. She was less goth-styled and more into punk; she was somehow even bolder, likely as a result of being Spider-Woman instead of a bystander; and she was older, at least two years his senior. But he could see all of his Gwen in this other Gwen - the same mischievous glint in her eyes whenever she thought of something amusing to do; the same kindness and resolve when it was time to get serious and put the pranks away. One thing Miles had learned in his universe-hopping days was that the core of a person never changed, only the circumstances that molded them, and he saw this to be especially true when he laid his eyes on Gwen.

 

Gwen seemed to notice that Miles had slipped into a long, tangential reverie, straw suspended between his lips, though he had long since stopped drinking it. He was brought back to reality by Gwen snapping her fingers in his face repeatedly.

 

“Hey, hey, come on, I’m not that boring.”

Miles chuckled and shook his head. “No comment.”

“You’re the worst.”

 

Gwen swirled her coffee around with a stirring stick, grimacing at the cold drink that she hadn’t been able to finish. Miles kept his eyes focused on her as he slurped up the melted remains of his milkshake. He could tell when Gwen was debating something in her head; she would make wordless mouth movements, just barely noticeable if you focused on her, and her free hand would obsessively tuck and untuck a lock of hair behind her ear. Finally, she met Miles’s eyes.

 

“Tell me more about your world.”

 

Miles, to his credit, did a very good job of adopting an immediate poker face. He knew that Gwen probably wasn’t fooled, but he could at least believe he had her fooled.

 

“What do you mean?” he started, choosing his words carefully. “You swing around here all the time.”

“Don’t play dumb with me, Miles.” Gwen leaned back and crossed her arms. “I know you’re not from here.”

Miles bit his lip, trying to figure out what Gwen might know, and what she was trying to find out. “I don’t really think I know what you’re talking about, Gwen. And where’d this come from, anyway?”

 

That question was a diversion, to get Gwen to back up for a minute. She’d been slowly easing into asking these sorts of questions for the past few weeks or so, and Miles had been able to brush them off primarily by playing them off and deflecting Gwen’s prodding into jokes or something else.

He also knew where it was coming from already - Gwen was still trying to familiarize herself with 616 and how different it was from her own world, which greatly tested Miles’s limited knowledge of his new home, as he had to make sure not to fill in the blanks with details from his native universe that might be completely different here. Gwen clearly remembered the Spider-Verse incident, as they referred to it - when the Inheritors attempted to steal the life force of every Spider-powered being in the multiverse, and it took a union of the strongest of them to end the threat. He and Gwen had been there, but they hadn’t interacted very much until after the Incursions were over and Gwen began appearing regularly in his universe.

 

“Back when we beat the Inheritors, I was keeping an eye on everyone, seeing who knew who, keeping inventory in my head of who came from where,” Gwen said, returning to stirring her coffee around. “You very clearly weren’t from this universe. The only person that knew you at all was Peter. Anya didn’t know you, Cindy didn’t know you, Jess didn’t know you. But that other Jess did - that Black Widow one.”

 

Miles frowned. Another friend he greatly missed that no longer existed.

 

“See, you know exactly what I’m talking about. That right there, that reaction confirms it. Miles, what are you hiding from me?”

Gwen leaned forward, her face softening, her hand reaching out, brushing against Miles’s.

“You can tell me whatever it is, I promise.”

Miles pulled his hand back.

“What if I don’t want to?” he said, looking down. “What if I…what if it hurts, Gwen? What then?”

“Miles-“

“I have to go.”

He stood up and grabbed his hoodie, pulling it on, throwing the hood over his head. After digging out a couple of bills to leave for the waitress, he made his way to the door and left Gwen behind, ignoring her pleas for him to come back.

 

Now wasn’t the time. He wasn’t ready.

 

He wasn’t sure if he ever would be.

 

+++

 

“You are such a melodramatic _bitch_ sometimes, Morales.”

 

Miles had retreated to Central Park, curled up on a bench, chin resting on his knees, thoroughly irritated. Lana Baumgartner sat next to him, idly scrolling through her phone.

 

The Molecule Man had rewarded Miles by bringing over his family and closest friends to the new universe, integrating them seamlessly into the universe, as if they had been there all along. Miles figured he had done the same for himself, but the Molecule Man had not blessed him with any of those memories. Instead, Miles remained a permanently lost citizen of Earth-1610, and that meant having memories that didn’t sync up with his closest friends and family. He’d mostly adjusted to it, but found himself now with a reputation for an incredibly spotty memory among most of his inner circle.

Lana was the one he always went to and confided in when he had trouble coping. She had been no different than the rest - she didn’t remember anything of their time on Earth-1610, though from what she had told Miles, her life had been a rather close approximation of how it had been before. But she didn’t ask questions, likely because she didn’t care much to hear the answers. She offered quick, simple solutions to Miles’s problems, and helped to ground him back in this new universe he’d found himself in. He’d determined early on that he wouldn’t inform his friends that they were not the same people he used to know, but he allowed himself to be a little more open with Lana. Her usual answer to any of his problems usually ended up being some variation of “get over it,” but he appreciated the way she cut through the bullshit with an incredibly sharp knife.

 

“So what’s it this time? Your weird existential angst that you didn’t have a year ago? That brown Jersey girl that didn’t work out? Ganke emanating his vaguely homosexual vibes again?”

Miles winced a little bit at Lana’s callous suggestions, but didn’t respond. Lana sighed.

 

“I know what it is, actually. It’s that weird teenage Gwen Stacy girl, isn’t it? I’ve seen you hanging around with her a lot lately.” She smirked when Miles pulled his hoodie further down on his face, signaling that she’d hit the right nerve.

“You’re smitten, but your bizarre angst is preventing you from committing. How hot am I? On fire? There’s no way I’m cold on this.”

“You could stand to be a little more sympathetic,” Miles muttered. Lana let out a sharp laugh.

 

“Morales, please. I have nothing to be sympathetic about. From everything I’ve heard from you, this girl wants it, and she wants it bad, but you’re holding back because you think you have something to hide from an alternate-universe dimension hopping girl that hasn’t been alive in this universe for a decade. Trust me, buddy, she’s probably seen it all at this point.”

 

Miles groaned, but Lana plowed forward unabated.

 

“I really don’t see what the big deal about it is, anyway. Not that you’ve ever told me about any of that,” she added, giving him a side-eyed glance. “Is that going to change any time soon?”

“Don’t do this, Lana.”

“Alright, alright, worth a shot,” she replied, focusing back on her phone. “But you’re not trying to get in _my_ pants, so I don’t care either way. If you want this Gwen chick, you need to open up with whatever dumb shit you’re holding in that little noggin of yours. It’s a trust thing, Morales.”

She stood up and brushed herself off, her job apparently done.

 

“You know I’m right. And I know you probably ditched her. So go bow your head, grovel at her feet, and spill all your deepest darkest secrets. If she’s still there after all that shit, you’re golden. If not, well…”

Lana spun on her heel to face him, and winked mischievously.

“You’ve got other options.”

 

Before Miles could respond to that, Lana had already spun back around and walked off, whistling.

“Was that…?” Miles questioned, before shaking his head. “Not engaging that.”

 

He stretched out on the bench, pulled his hood off his head, and stood up, feeling somewhat refreshed. Lana, as usual, had fixed things. He never understood how she was so good at it when she was so obnoxious. Maybe that was the secret.

He looked at his phone. Gwen generally spent only a single day in his universe at a time, and the sun was beginning to set. Now he was in a race against time to find her and apologize. And maybe - just maybe - it was time to come clean.

_Hope I can swing fast enough,_ he thought as he began to run back into the city.

 

+++

 

As it turned out, Miles did not need to look far. He fired off a quick text to Silk, and - after receiving a very stern reprimand from the girl - learned that Gwen typically departed from the top of an abandoned building on the edge of Manhattan, to minimize visibility. He slipped into an alleyway, pulled on his mask, and took to the skies, swinging between buildings to reach Gwen before she left.

 

He landed on the building just as Gwen was dialing up the portal to Earth-65 and was preparing to step in. Hastily pulling off his and shoving it in his jacket, he called out to her.

 

“Gwen! Wait a second!”

With one foot in the portal, Gwen stopped, sighed, and turned to face Miles, her eyes narrowed.

“Come to tell me off one last time for the week, Miles?”

That was fair, he deserved that one.

“I’m here to say I’m sorry, Gwen. And to…”

 

He turned away, still unsure. He still didn’t want to think about his previous life, the one that had been so violently taken from him. But Gwen deserved to know, especially if he intended to entertain the notion that had been growing in his chest for months regarding her.

He looked back to see Gwen’s face softened in expression. She’d stepped back from the portal and disbursed it, and now stared at Miles with her arms crossed, head tilted to the side, waiting for him to spit out whatever he’d tried to say before.

 

“To, uh…tell you about…can we sit down? Over there?”

 

He gestured aimlessly at one of those metal boxes of indeterminate use on the roof, and sat down on it to drive the point home. After a moment of contemplation, Gwen took Miles up on the offer, and plopped down next to him, staring out into the orange, darkening sky.

 

“Go ahead,” she said, encouragingly.

 

Miles proceeded to lay out, essentially, a history of his world, at least how he saw it - vaguely remembering when the Ultimates first arrived on the scene, the brief glimpses of Peter Parker as Spider-Man, the bizarre uptick in superhuman attacks, the mutants, the Ultimatum wave and nearly drowning in it, the mutant segregation and exile, how he himself gained his powers, joining the Ultimates, losing his mother…

He left out a few things - Katie Bishop could stay in the past, for one. He also felt a pressure in the back of his mind compelling him not to mention the Incursions - something told him that opening that can of worms wouldn’t be a great idea. But Gwen was absolutely enthralled; she sat motionlessly as Miles spoke, her eyes glued to him as he described every difference between his current universe and his previous one, prodding him for more information about Peter and Gwen, laughing at the ridiculousness of some of his villains, being shocked and gently squeezing Miles’s hand as he described his mother’s death.

Perhaps because of the sudden dump of information, Miles noted that Gwen did not press him about how he’d been transplanted into a new universe; he merely said that his had been destroyed, and he and his closest friends and family had been given a chance to survive.

 

“So that’s, well…” Miles rubbed his chin, trying to figure out a way not to end things on a lame note. “That’s that.”

Mission failed.

 

Gwen placed a hand on Miles’s back and gave a soothing rub, a soft, encouraging smile crossing her face.

“I’m glad you opened up to me.”

She squinted at her watch, and stood up. Miles followed her, confused.

“Wait, you’re just leaving still?” he said, a little baffled.

 

Gwen keyed in the code to activate the portal to Earth-65. When she looked back up to Miles, she had a mystifying expression on her face - almost like she was teasing him.

“I am on a schedule, Miles,” she said, sticking her tongue out.

“That’s not funny.”

 

Once the portal opened, Gwen nodded to herself, and then put a hand on Miles’s shoulder.

 

“Like I said, Miles, I’m glad you’re willing to tell me the truth,” she said. “I really am. And I know that I should’ve expected something along the lines of what you told me.”

Her hand slid down to squeeze his bicep, a reassuring gesture that started to calm Miles down.

“Just seems really abrupt is all,” he said, covering her hand with his.

“It’s just a lot to digest,” Gwen replied. “And like I said, I’m running late. But…”

 

In one swift motion, Gwen turned Miles to face her, stepped up to him, and planted a light kiss on his lips. The moment was so fleeting that Miles might have imagined it, if he couldn’t see Gwen standing in front of him, her cheeks quickly filling up with pink.

 

“I’ll see you soon,” she said, spinning on her heel and stepping through the portal before Miles could compose himself. As it closed, though, Gwen turned to face him, and Miles saw something on Gwen’s face that he hadn’t seen before - longing.

 

The portal blinked out, and Miles was left standing in the dark, on top of an abandoned building, overlooking the urban sprawl of Manhattan. His heart hammered in his chest, and he brushed his fingers across his lips, trying to commit the feeling of Gwen’s to memory.

Next week couldn’t come soon enough.

**Author's Note:**

> I was going to add some snark about me saying that I would focus primarily on Ultimate Universe fanfic, but it turns out I made no such promises. Still.
> 
> I was in the process of attempting a Miles/Kamala fic that may still come out in the future when the Marvel NOW! 2016 previews dropped and that baffling cover of Spider-Man #12 was revealed, with Miles and Gwen getting some choice smooching in. Knowing Bendis it probably doesn't happen at all, as he loves his comics to have covers the are the equivalent of clickbait. (Remember when Miles was dressed in full SHIELD gear and was diving over exploding Helicarriers? Yeah that was definitely my favorite part of Ultimate Spider-Man.)
> 
> But it lit a fire in me because it's stupid and complete nonsense and that's what I specialize in. I also specialize in honing in on the suffering of characters with a laser focus, and though it hasn't been explored in Spider-Man yet, I can't imagine that Miles doesn't suffer over the fact that almost everyone he's ever known died in a big cosmic fireball. Sure, Molecule Man was kind enough to give him his family and closest friends intact (including Lana because the Bendis originals have to survive), but did he give him 616 memories? A brand new history? Or does Miles still remember being bit by a spider in his uncle's apartment, neither of which exist on a cosmic level any more? It's fascinating to think how that would weigh on him. And it's something that Gwen doesn't have to deal with because she only deals with her own universe, with the occasional Spider-Verse bullshit. And Web Warriors I guess.
> 
> So that was the genesis. Gwen's witty and sarcastic, and that plays well off of Miles being the sensitive straight man, which he certainly is when he's out of the suit. Overall I think it's a cute pairing, even if it's something I'd believe was straight from Tumblr if it wasn't on the cover of an actual Marvel comic. Wild.
> 
> May do more Spider-Gwen in the future. We'll have to see. But there will certainly be more Ultimate content, because god knows that universe needs some love since Marvel sure as hell won't provide it to us.


End file.
